The Silent Guardians!

Our heroes found themselves in some sort of altered reality. They were still in the dorm room, but it was different – Ayumi’s side was full of tiny stuffed animals and lots of pink clothing, while Mary’s side was palatial and dark, with lots of candles, skulls, and old books. Weird. Mary came out of her trance, pleased that her spell had worked. The Silent Guardians were demons, she explained, summoned by her spell and bound to serve her. When the heroes looked at themselves, they found that their shapes were different, twisted into demonic forms of their previous selves.

Mary immediately gave them their first command – she needed to get ready for class, and Ayumi was in the shower. Their first task was to get her out of the shower! They were naturally confused – after all, Synapsiswas right there with them. But upon entering the bathroom, they saw that Ayumi was indeed in the shower. However, her appearance was different than normal; she looked like a little girl, with exaggerated, stereotyped Asian features. And she didn’t want to get out of the shower. The Guardians finally lured her out with a math problem that Dr. Decibel came up with (oh, that’s just horrible).

With stereotype Ayumi happily working on her math problem, Mary charged into the bathroom, and the Silent Guardians grabbed Confuto Tractus Vox and hightailed it out of the dorm room. Students in the hallway didn’t seem to notice their demonic appearances – in fact, they didn’t seem to notice them at all. The Guardians briefly debated their course of action, and finally decided that they should hang around Mary and find out just what was going on.

Outside, they saw that the campus showed signs of the demon invasion of the night before – large gouges in the ground, smashed vehicles, and uprooted trees. But nobody seemed to pay the damage any mind. Hmm, what was that all about? It was here that Mary and her new demon slaves saw Heather Harrison and Lance Bishop getting friendly with each other, and Mary was noticeably jealous. The Guardians figured that they could use this fact to their advantage somehow; and Mary began to think of ways she could use the Guardians to do something about this.

The first class was Prof. Hadik’s math class. Mary was called up to the board to show Euclid’s proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. Naturally, Mary had no idea how to do this, and called upon her new demon slaves to help her. The math problem turned into some strange word game vs. the laws of mathematics, but the Guardians won by using spontaneous illogic.

The next class was English Lit, where the class had been discussing Gone With the Wind. Mary had trouble keeping her eyes open, and began to doze off. Jaguar tried to keep her awake, but ultimately failed, and Mary finally fell asleep.

She drew the Silent Guardians into her dream with her – they found themselves in the sitting room of a large Southern plantation. Mary was there, dressed as a Southern Belle, as was Brian Jackson (as a slave named Jack) and another slave named Lizzy. Jack ran into the room hollering about Yankees at the door. The Guardians went to investigate, and found three Union officers, better known as Prof. Hughes, Prof. Miles Weston, and Lance Bishop (again). The officers announced that they were there to liberate the plantation and its slaves, and to take Miss Mary Matthews (“surely the most beautiful lady the South had ever birthed”) into custody. The officers argued amongst themselves as to who would take Miss Mary into their personal custody, Mary declared that she had no interest in being liberated, and the Silent Guardians told the officers to scram.

Naturally, the Union officers would not be dissuaded so easily – they ordered their force of 20 soldiers to attack! Half of the force headed around to the back, while the other half attacked the front of the building. Dr. Decibel and Synapsis (along with BJ/Jack) took a position at a window to fire at 5 of the soldiers, while Jaguar, followed closely by Pythagoras, leaped into the front lawn to take on 5 more. Mary, Princess Python, and Lizzy all ran upstairs to hide.

It was business as usual for the Silent Guardians – Jaguar fought hand to hand against his foes, while Dr. Decibel blasted many of the soldiers he was fighting, and Synapsis struggled to have any affect on the battle, whatsoever. She eventually ran back to the kitchen to see what mischief the other 10 Union soldiers were getting up to. Sure enough, they were coming in through the back. She used her forcefield to try to keep them at bay, but it would only be a matter of time before they overwhelmed her with superior nummbers.

Meanwhile, Pythagoras and one of the soldiers fought an epic battle of swing/whiff. The soldier did manage to stab Pythagoras with his bayonet, but the giant python would not be taken out so easily – Jaguar was there to save his bacon…

The soldiers in front of the building defeated (unconscious or running off into the woods), Dr. Decibel, Jaguar, and Pythagoras ran back to the kitchen to help Synapsis. Those soldiers were driven off, and…

…the bell rang. Class was over.

Mary decided that she was skipping the rest of her classes for the day. She needed to get to Emily’s to pick up her gown for the Vampire Club Ball that night. She also declared that her new demon slaves would need appropriate attire.

At Emily’s, Mary and the Silent Guardians ran into three more members of the Vampire Club – Nadya, Natasha, and Nefertiti. Mary and the three beautiful women exchanged cold greetings, and Mary went off to try on her dress. The women were much more interested in Jaguar, and he in them, so they had a little chit chat on their own. Mary commanded the rest of the Guardians to hold her purse while she tried on her gown, but once in the dressing room, the surrounding mannequins turned into real women and attacked! “Mary must not be allowed to attend the Ball,” they said as they advanced on the dressing room. Synapsis telepathically shouted for Jaguar to come help them. He noticed the small smiles on the faces of the vampire girls as he rushed to join his companions…

The mannequins were soon defeated, and Mary announced that she was pleased with her gown. She pulled Princess Python aside to look for an outfit for her. The rest of the Guardians wandered around the dress shop, and noticed three strange mannequins. These mannequins were surprisingly lifelike, and were dressed like superheroes. A large winged cat sat at the foot of one of them, and the cat introduced himself as Mr. Fluffy, a member of the Challengers of Infinity!

Mr. Fluffy told the Guardians that they were all trapped in one of Mary’s spells. The Challengers had been at the very edge of the spell, and were thus unable to interact with this world the way the Guardians could. Rowdy Rosey – a member of the Challengers and a wizard – cast a spell to try to communicate with the Guardians. She isn’t a very good wizard, though, and her spell affected Mr. Fluffy instead of her. Mr. Fluffy doesn’t fully understand what’s going on, but he tried to explain to the Guardians as best he could.

Mary’s spell is sort of a dream world – it’s how she sees the world, sort of, but with the strangeness common to dreams. It’s also the real world, and her actions (and those of the Guardians) will have repercussions! Mr. Fluffy suggests that the Guardians do what they can to make sure that Mary doesn’t do too much damage to the real world in her dream, but play along. Something like that. He says that Rowdy Rosey is trying to figure out how to wake Mary up, but fears that doing so could be “bad.” The spell might have to run its course, but Mr. Fluffy has no idea what that means (it was just something that Rosey said).

So what’s next for the Silent Guardians? They’ve agreed to play along, but what does that mean? Also, who is trying to keep Mary from attending the Vampire Club Ball? And, more importantly, will they end up finding dashing outfits for the Ball? Stay tuned!

…and the Guardians made short work of it. The demon tried to grab Jaguar, but an uppercut knocked the thing out, and it was over after that.

Then the wonders of technology intruded upon the scene as the Guardians’ cell phones and wrist communicators started going off.

Cody Howard was calling from the hospital, wondering what was going on. None of the nurses would tell him, but he knew there were weird things happening in town. Mez told him to stay calm, everything was fine.

Brian Jackson called on his new wrist com, and told Jaguar that he had been going to pick up a pizza when the fog rolled in and he saw dark shapes prowling around. He figured it was something the Silent Guardians ought to check out. Jaguar assured him that they were on it, and told BJ to stay inside and keep the door locked.

Sally Mae Thurman called Prof. Hughes, wanting to get together again to “talk about his research” (hubba hubba). The good doctor told her that he was busy and couldn’t get together tonight, but before he could tell her to stay inside, they were cut off. He could hear the sounds of a struggle over the still-open line. Uh, oh.

Police Chief Barney Owens called Dr. Decibel on his wrist com, asking the Silent Guardians to look into the disturbances. 911 was going crazy, and his men didn’t have a handle on the situation, or even really know what was going on. Dr. D told him they were already on it.

Jack, Ayumi‘s boss at the campus bookstore, called to ask her to come in to work. Becky hadn’t showed up, and Jack was sorry, but he needed somebody to cover her shift. Before Ayumi could answer, Jack was pulled from the phone by…something.

The Guardians decided to check the bookstore first. The Guardians headed for the KFU campus, through streets shrouded in fog, surrounded by distant screams and guttural laughter. They arrived at the campus, and found that the place had been torn up—cars smashed and overturned, trees knocked over, the ground torn with furrows, the statue of Edward M. Hiner missing its head. The Guardians did a little educated guessing, and decided that the campus had been the epicenter of a demonic invasion. Luckily, the beasts seemed to have moved on. For the most part.

The bookstore was located in Castle Hall. On their way there, they heard more screams and shouting coming from within. Evidently, somebody besides Jack was in trouble there. And, before they entered the hall, they saw a hellish red glow coming from the window of a certain dorm room.

But first, the people in Castle Hall.

They entered the bookstore, and their perceptions skewed crazily. The walls of the place stretched away from them, and the bookshelves moved by themselves to form the walls of a labyrinth. A high-pitched voice came to them: “Hope you like mazes, cause you’ll never get out!” Jack shouted for help from somewhere deep in the maze, and the the squeaky voice said, “Ready or not, here I come!”

The Guardians twisted and turned their way through the maze, and came to a humanoid cockroach-like demon with a rat head. Once again, Jaguar knocked the thing out with one punch. The bookstore returned to normal, and Jack was saved.

The Guardians had heard screams coming from the cafeteria, and they found three frog-headed satyr-like demons menacing a number of terrified girls. The demons were more interested in snatching the girls and hauling them off for a midnight snack than they were in tangling with the Guardians, but our heroes managed to defeat them and hustle the girls to safety.

The Guardians finally made it to Ayumi’s room, where they found Mary Matthews sitting on the floor, Confuto Tractus Vox open on her lap, the pages glowing a hellish red. Standing over her was a demon with a mass tentacles where its head should be, each tipped with a bloodshot eye, and eyes in the back of its hands. It introduced itself as Visimajoris, and told the Guardians that it wouldn’t allow them to close the gate. It then reached into the mass of tentacles, and pulled its neck wide—an impossibly huge bat pushed itself out. The bat was seemingly too big to fit in the room, having a wingspan of 100’, but it began swooping around and attacked!

Dr. Decibel and Synapsis focused their attention on the bat, and Jaguar struck a mighty blow on Vismajoris, sending the Demon King through the wall and out of the building. Jaguar leaped through the Visimajoris-sized hole he’d just made to confront the demon outside.

Jaguar attacked with a frenzy of slashes, punches, kicks, and even tried spitting a time or two (well, maybe not the spitting part…), but Visimajoris seemed to shrug off every blow with disdain. The Demon King fought back, landing a few hits of his own. Meanwhile, Dr. D and Synapsis had managed to finish off the impossibly huge bat, and tried to wake Mary Matthews from her trance. Nothing they tried could wake her, but they did manage to get Visimajoris’ attention. Synapsis learned that the Demon King was actively using his power to keep Mary focused on the portal. She ran to the hole in the wall and tried to psionic blast Visimajoris, while Dr. Decibel contemplating actually killing Mary Matthews in order to close the gate.

Synapsis managed to stun Visimajoris, but only momentarily. Angered, the Demon King focused his dread gaze upon her, catching her with his numerous eyes, holding her helpless. And then he began splitting her physical form, doubling her over and over again. She could feel her lifeforce slipping away into disaster as more and more Synapsises appeared in the room.

Jaguar tried heroically to stop this, but Visimajoris ignored his attacks. Dr. Decibel decided that he couldn’t take a life, no matter the consequences. He saw what was happening to Synapsis, and rushed to try and help her. He began focusing his sonic energies on Visimajoris, but the Demon King ignored his attacks as he had ignored Jaguar’s.

There were thirty-some-odd Synapsises in the room, and she was almost gone by the time Jaguar was finally able to break the Demon King’s gaze on her. Visimajoris flung him away, and then focused his eyes upon Jaguar.

Jaguar leaped back up to the dorm room, and the Silent Guardians rushed to check on Mary Matthews. The glow from the pages of Confuto Tractus Vox faded, and Mary opened her eyes and gazed around blearily. She seemed unaware of her surroundings, and looked right through the Guardians as her head swung around.

“That was interesting,” she murmured. And then she reached up and turned another page.

Synapsis/Ayumi didn’t hesitate. She went at Brian Jackson, Supervillain with a fury. Unfortunately, Synapsis isn’t much of a fighter, but luckily for her, neither is Brian. Synapsis did think to enclose Brian’s gun in a forcefield, and he was eventually forced to flee.

Ayumi and her parents fled back to the University, where they contacted the campus police. The campus police asked why they didn’t contact the real police. Good question. They did so, and Ayumi also signaled the rest of the Silent Guardians, Jaguar/Mez, who was with his girlfriend Heather, and Dr. Decibel/Prof. Hughes, who was looking for crime to fight with Princess Python.

This innocent-seeming little act had a couple of unfortunate consequences for the Guardians. First, Mez rushed out on his girlfriend at the call of another woman. She was naturally not too pleased by this, and has broken up with him (and Mez seems strangely not to care that his hot woman wants nothing to do with him anymore…). Second, Princess Python managed to figure out who the Silent Guardians are in real life (they were the only ones, besides the police and Ayumi’s parents who showed up, and Princess Python isn’t as dumb as one might assume). The Guardians found out about this little development later on.

Ayumi’s father was furious and demanded once again that Ayumi return home to Japan with them the next day. But Ayumi finally stood up to the old man, telling him that she had responsibilities here in America, and that she refused to abandon them and her education. Mr. Hirugashi didn’t want to hear it, forbade her to stay, told her to have her bags packed in the morning, and stormed out. Mrs. Hirugashi told Ayumi not to worry. Her father is very proud of her, he just doesn’t know how to show it. He’s also worried about her safety, which is why he demands that she return with them (although the family is apparently in some kind of trouble with the Yakuza back in Japan, so Ayumi might actually be safer in the States…). She told Ayumi that she would talk to her husband, and that Ayumi would be able to stay. She would get her way with this.

The attempted kidnapping of Mrs. Hirugashi was an insult that couldn’t be ignored. The Silent Guardians talked to Princess Python, who informed them that the Mad Thinker had a hideout in St. Louis—an old warehouse. She didn’t know if he’d be there, but she knew that that’s where the Serpent Society was to assemble after the raid on Guthrie Mansion. The Guardians, Princess Python in tow, headed to St. Louis in Mez’s bitchin’ Camaro.

Indeed, the rest of the Serpent Society was lurking within the warehouse. The Guardians got the jump on Boomslang while he was microwaving a burrito in the cafeteria. But when they went into the warehouse area, steel doors dropped to close off all the exits, and a great big robot attacked! The Guardians had had trouble with this breed of robot before (see The Silent Guardians!), so they knew they were in trouble with this one. But there was a computer terminal in the area, and they rightly figured that there might be a code of some kind to shut the robot down. While Jaguar and Synapsis kept the robot busy, Dr. Decibel and Princess Python rushed to the computer and began feverishly working to decipher the code. They managed to shut the thing down, but not before Jaguar took a significant beating from it.

After beating the great big robot, the Silent Guardians returned to the office area, where they were attacked by another three robots – a Puncherbot, a Sawbot, and a Spiderbot. The Guardians took them down easily, but did a lot of damage to the building and set off the fire alarms. Oops.

They found Slither and Puff Adder waiting for them in one of the offices, and Coachwhip, Sidewinder, and Black Mamba jumped them from behind. Sidewinder and Black Mamba managed to escape, but the other Snakes were apprehended.

The Guardians found the real Brian Jackson tied to a chair in another office. But by the time they got out of the building, the fire department and the police had arrived. The police wanted to take them in, but the Guardians skedaddled.

The next day, Dr. Decibel and Princess Python went to Red Lobster together (in costume, and they remembered a doggy bag for Pythagoras – er, that would be a snakey bag, I guess). Ayumi talked to her parents again, telepathically showed them the Silent Guardians (the previously mentioned responsibilities), and convinced her father that she needs to stay here. He wasn’t happy about it, but he did give in. Mez learned that Cody Howard got beat up at a party Saturday night. He went to visit him, and asked about who it was that did it, but nobody seemed to have any idea.

On Monday, Mez talked with Brian, who confessed to him that he told the Serpent Society who the Silent Guardians are. Mez was like, “huh?”

“Look, Mez,” Brian said. “I’m the smartest person you know. I’m most likely the smartest person you’ll ever meet. And it honestly wasn’t very hard to figure out who the Jaguar is. Or the rest of you. I’m sorry I told them, but I’m no superhero. And I want to make it up to you. I want to be a part of the team.”

The rest of the Silent Guardians took the news well, and have decided that they’ll figure out something for him to do.

Oh, I don’t think I mentioned it, but I’m sure you’ve figured out that it wasn’t the real Brian Jackson who tried to kidnap Mrs. Hirugashi. It was actually one of the Mad Thinker’s robots, Doppelbot!

Okay, moving on.

Mez also checked the Silent Guardians Facebook page. In addition to the usual fanboy posts (and a few from Princess Python), he found one from somebody named Dog Spear. Dog Spear used a lot of colorful language which amounted to, “we’re gonna get ya.”

At football practice, Mez got to work with the 3rd string QB, Stevie Combs. The Dragons’ chances in their upcoming games don’t look good…

Prof. Hughes had received several messages from the new head of the engineering dept, Sally Mae Thurman, saying that she wanted to check out some of his nanotech research. He called her and told her to come by the lab about 7:00 and he’d show her what he’s been working on. She showed up with Chinese takeout, he showed her his little bots, and, well, smart is sexy. One thing led to another, and…

Meanwhile, Ayumi found her roommate, Mary Matthews, in another trance. She couldn’t wake her up from this one. Muttering to herself in Japanese, Ayumi just left her there and went to work at the bookstore.

The next day, Ayumi and Mez both learned that they had a test in American History that they had completely forgotten about. Uh oh. They’d spent so much time over the past few weeks dealing with giant robots, the Serpent Society, Beethoven’s Five, and just being superheroes in general that they’d completely forgotten about this test.

Ain’t neither one of em super smart (Mez is riding a football scholarship and Ayumi is in danger of flunking more than one class), but they did very well on the test.

Later that night, they heard on their police scanners that there was a robbery in progress at Black Jack’s Liquor Store. They rushed there, and found some more 241 Mafia thugs holding the place up. Jaguar didn’t hesitate. He crashed through the plate glass window in the front of the place, jumping up on the counter between two of the thugs and the clerk. They tried to shoot him, but Jags pwned them, grabbed the terrified clerk, and jumped back out the window, just in time to avoid Dr. Decibel’s sound bomb (patent pending) that pretty much destroyed the interior of the place, including the four other thugs that were in there.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the 241 Mafia had arrived – Ice Bloom, Trap Web, and the aforementioned Dog Spear (with his trusty canine companion Dr. Fuzzy Butt). Dog Spear teleported close to Jaguar, and started blipping around him, stabbing with his spear, but not doing much in the way of hitting. Princess Python had meanwhile taken hold of Kim, the hot young clerk, and was keeping her safe and away from the fight. Ice Bloom and Dr. Decibel traded quips, and then decided that talking time was over. They both reached for each other at the same time, but Dr. Decibel was a little faster. He touched the loquacious Ice Bloom and transformed him into a circuitry statue.

“Mmm, mmm, mmm,” said Trap Web to Dr. Decibel. “I think I want me some o’ you, pretty boy.” She charged him, but he managed to duck away as she tried to grab him.

“Hard to get, I like that,” she said. She tried to grab him, but he grabbed her, and she was subsequently circuitry statued.

Dog Spear and Jaguar’s battle was dragging on, and Synapsis finally just mind blasted the villain, knocking him out. El Medico decided that he’d had enough and ran off.

By this time, the police had arrived. The Silent Guardians managed to escape after talking to an officer about the substantial property damage. All of the officers conveniently looked the other way when they went to take care of Kim and the unconscious leaders of the 241 Mafia, and the Silent Guardians took off.

On their way home, Princess Python told the other Guardians that she had seen somebody checking out the battle on a nearby rooftop. It was a blond woman in a blue and gray costume and cape. She watched for a little bit, and then took off. The Guardians were intrigued. Who could this be? Was she another superhero, or a super villain?

A deep fog had settled over Kingdom Falls. A scream was heard in the distance. The Silent Guardians paused on their way, trying to determine the direction the scream had come from. And then they heard a crunch, shuffle, crunch, shuffle. They stopped in their tracks, the fog deepening. And then emerging from fog came a, well, a thing.

The demon had glistening black skin stretched tight over its bony frame. It was tall and thin with a long torso and short hind legs. It had one long, clawed foreleg protruding from its chest. Its head was vaguely canine with a long snout and a grinning, fang filled mouth. It had no eyes, but it seemed to look at each of them in turn. And then it hissed….

Diamondbackthrew a narcotic poisoned dart at him, hitting Jaguar and envenoming him with hallucinations. Jags managed to shake off the poison, and Black Mamba attempted to fool Synapsiswith an illusion of Brian Jackson. Synapsis wasn’t impressed, of course.

Jaguar ended up on the ground, though, and charged Black Racer, who had peeked her head out the kitchen door. The pair of them ended up in the kitchen, where Anaconda wrapped herself around Jaguar and kept him busy for awhile. Synapsis and Dr. Decibel took care of the two Serpents outside before going into the kitchen, where they helped Jaguar take out Bushmaster, Anaconda, and Black Racer (who fled the battle, by the way).

The Silent Guardians explored Guthrie Mansion, searching for whatever it was that the Mad Thinker had sent the Serpent Society to retrieve. Synapsis played several challenging pieces of music on the grand piano, and they tangled with the rest of the Serpent Society: Princess Python, Rock Python, Rattler, Black Racer (again), Death Adder, Cottonmouth, and Fer-de-Lance. The Silent Guardians apprehended the majority of the Serpent Society, except for Black Mamba, their leader, and Princess Python, who begged the group to let her join. The Guardians were split on whether or not to trust the Princess, but Dr. Decibel convinced them that she was trustworthy. For now, anyway…

With Princess Python’s help, the Silent Guardians discovered what exactly the Serpent Society had been sent here to find—the updated plans for the OrBot, an orbital space station/weapons platform that the Mad Thinker obviously wanted to use to increase his own power. The plans in Guthrie Mansion featured a correction to a flaw in the original plans. The Mad Thinker needed these new plans so that he could build the thing with no Death Star exhaust port weakness.

While investigating Guthrie Mansion, the Silent Guardians found a humanoid robot. The thing did not present a threat; in fact, it seems to be a blank slate as the only words it would say were, “awaiting programming.” Dr. Decibel was like a kid on Christmas morning, and he took the robot back home with him. He named it Alludium, and plans to tinker with it extensively in the future.

After the Guardians left the Mansion, Princess Python asked Dr. Decibel if she could stay with him, since she had nowhere else to go. He politely declined, and told her to friend the Silent Guardians on Facebook when she asked for his number. Evidently, despite all her promises of wanting to turn over a new leaf, the good Doctor still didn’t quite trust her. Pythagoras, her 25’ long python, was relieved to see that this punk wasn’t trying to take his lady away.

Later that night, Ayumi returned to her dorm to find her roomy, Mary Matthews, in some sort of trance. The room was full of candles, and the book Confuto Tractus Vox was open in her lap. Ayumi tried to wake Mary from the trance, but she couldn’t get any kind of response. She called Dr. Decibel to explain the problem, who in turn contacted Jaguar. Mez’s parents are archeology professors, and so he figured Mez might know somebody with knowledge of European history. Indeed he did, and Mez agreed to talk to Prof. William Banner the next day. Ayumi finally managed to wake Mary, who assured her that nothing was wrong and told Ayumi to mind her own business. Shy quiet Ayumi agreed, but with obvious misgivings.

The next day was pretty busy for the Silent Guardians, or at least for their secret identities. Prof. Hughes was called to a meeting of the engineering department where it was announced that Prof. Sally Mae Thurman from MIT had agreed to take over as head of the department. The other teachers in the room weren’t happy about this, but Prof. Hughes took it with grace. It didn’t hurt anything that Prof. Thurman is a very beautiful woman, and that he caught her checking him out as he left the meeting.

At football practice, QB Lance Bishop was acting sick. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with him, but he said his muscles were sore and he was dizzy. Back up QB Cody Howard was put in. Cody is a young kid, just out of high school with a cannon for an arm, but without a lot of pocket awareness. Mez got a bunch of other players together to try to help him before the game Saturday.

Ayumi received an unexpected and unwelcome phone call: her parents were coming for a visit! They were in New York, and would be in Kingdom Falls on Sunday! Swearing to herself in Japanese, Ayumi went to her music class where she met the new music professor, John Glaceau.

Saturday finally arrived, the day of the postponed football game against the K State Wildcats. Since the KFU field was still messed up due to the giant robot attack, the Dragons were able to use the Kingdom Falls White Knights field (the White Knights are the local semi-pro team). Lance Bishop was still suffering from his mysterious illness, so Cody Howard got the start. The Dragons took the field to chants of “Mez Em Up!” and Mez managed to score just before half time. The game was finally won by the Dragons’ defense on the last play of the game, as a fumble was recovered and run in for a TD.

After the game, Ayumi ran into Brian Jackson, who had recovered from his own sickness. They talked for a little while, and Brian offered to teach Ayumi about football over some tea. She agreed, and that’s when her parents showed up!

“So, this is why you do so bad in school!” shouted Mr. Hirugashi. “You spend all you time at American football game!”

Ayumi protested her innocence, saying that she didn’t even like football, and in fact, her tutor was here! She introduced her parents to Brian Jackson, and when Mrs. Hirugashi shook his hand, Brian grabbed her and held a gun to her head!

The Silent Guardians spring into action, determined to have better results against this giant robot than they did against the last one. Unfortunately, this one is fifty feet tall and covered with thick metal armor…

Sysnapsisestablishes a mental link between the three of them, and Dr. Decibel informs them that there is a secret hatch located between the monster’s “shoulder blades.” Jaguarjumps up on the monster, only to be attacked by the robot’s guardians—six spiderbots! Jaguarfinally manages to claw his way into the robot, but only after having a hell of a hard time against the spiderbots (who also manage to vex Synapsisand Dr. Decibel quite effectively). Dr. Decibel joins Jaguarin the robotand find a control room in its head. They work frantically to take control of the thing while Synapsistries to contain the remaining spiderbots and avoid the attacks of the giant robot monster.

The heroes manage to gain control of the robot and use it to neutralize the remaining spiderbots. It is then that the Mad Thinker appears on the screens in the control room. He taunts Dr. Decibel for a few moments, then retakes control of the giant robot. The thing burrows back down beneath the football field, returning from whence it came.

They decided that they would talk with the police chief, Chief Barney Owens. They went to his house and after a tense moment he invited them in.

Chief Owens told them in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t crazy about the idea of vigilantes in long underwear running around in his town, but he also understands that his men aren’t equipped to deal with the sudden rash of super villains. They asked how they might get into the Bros. Grimm facility, and he told them that they should talk to Frankenhammer, a guard from the facility that would be transporting Amalgamation Man there on Monday (Time Bat had escaped some time earlier, naturally).

The Silent Guardians also learned that Guthrie Mansion had been broken into during the battle with the giant robot monster, but they (the culprits) had set off an alarm and fled before they were able to do much.

That night, the heroes decided that they would go on patrol. At a Break Time, they interrupted a robbery by members of the 241 Mafia, a local gang. Although they managed to apprehend all six of the gangbangers, they had to work hard for it (and were pretty embarrassed by what they felt was a subpar performance). The clerk at the Break Time, Antoine Jefferson (“call me Ace”) is actually the former Firebreather, a super hero whose career was ended when Amalgamation Man stole his powers. Come to find out, Ace is the Silent Guardians’ biggest fan.

On Sunday, the heroes went to the Kingdom Falls Police Station to talk to Frankenhammer. The big guard didn’t do much talking, but the Silent Guardians did speak to Wardonkey, warden of the Bros. Grimm Day Care Center, on the phone. Wardonkey told them they could ride with Frankenhammer on Monday and then visit with the Mad Thinker when they got there.

After being mistaken for the Quiet Watchers by some passing motorists, the Silent Guardians finally made it to Bros. Grimm. They were chewed out by Warden Wardonkey, but they did get to talk to the Mad Thinker. During the interrogation, they discovered that he is actually an almost perfect robotic replica of the real Mad Thinker. This one had been created by that villain, and had spent its entire existence in this prison cell.

They were now determined to figure out what the Mad Thinker is up to. But first, back to school. Heatherhad been worried about Mez (and it seems also has a crush on Prof. Hughes, just like most of the young women at KFU), and Brian Jackson, Mez’s roommate, seems to be developing feelings for Ayumi (and she isn’t sure how she feels about that). Prof. Hughes, meanwhile, was informed by the dean that Prof. Harrison would not be returning to the university. He would make an announcement within the next couple of days as to who would be taking over the engineering department. Prof. Hughes was almost drooling with anticipation; he’d been coveting that position for as long as he’d been at KFU.

That night, the Silent Guardians went to investigate Guthrie Mansion to figure out what significance the place had. They went to sneak in the back way, and Jaguarsaw some movement on the roof over the back door. He leaped up to the roof, only to be confronted by a pair of beautiful women—Diamondback and Black Mamba, members of the Serpent Society!

Their first action as a team involved several large spiky robots. All three of the heroes were out on the town in their secret identities (Mez was on a date with his girlfriend Heather, Ayumi was going for a pizza for her roommate Mary Matthews, and Prof. Hughes was going to get a burger). Suddenly, they noticed a spiky robot chasing a man down the middle of the street. The heroes managed to slip away and don their costumes, and then engaged the robot in battle.

The battle didn’t go well. The first robot was joined by two others, and the heroes were forced to retreat and watch them from a distance. The robots smashed the cornerstone of the Guthrie Mansion, and took the metal box within it and dumped it into the fountain in Buchanan Park. The robots then returned to the Overton Storage Facility.

Jaguar (Mez) and Synapsis (Ayumi) investigated the box, but found it empty. Meanwhile, Dr. Decibel (Prof. Hughes) flew to the Overton Storage Facility to watch the robots. He discovered that the place was on fire. The fire dept. and police showed up, and Dr. Decibel fled the scene.

Later investigation turned up that there had been a total of five of the robots, and they had been shipped from St. Louis. They did some research on Guthrie Mansion and learned that the place had been owned by the Mad Thinker until his incarceration 13 years ago. The Mad Thinker was being held at the Bros. Grimm Day Care Center, a super max super prison in St. Louis.

The next day in his office, Prof. Hughes notices that his academic rival (and head of the engineering dept.) Prof. Donald Harrison is limping and looks to have been in a fight. Prof. Harrison notices the same thing about Prof. Hughes. The two eye each other warily during the tense discussion about the goals of the engineering department at Kingdom Falls University.

Meanwhile, Ayumi notices that the violin that normally hangs on the wall in her music class is missing. Also, the music teacher, Miles Weston, suddenly changes the song that the class is to play, from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to Fur Elise.

Mez has football practice, and he and Lance Bishop, the quarterback of the KFU Dragons, argue as usual. Mez knows that this is only because Lance is jealous of Mez’s skills and his girlfriend.

Later, Ayumi notices that her roommateis acting strangely. More strange than normal, even. Maryleaves the room and Ayumi copies down the title of one of the strange books Mary has been reading—Confuto Tractus Vox. She plans to have the title translated later.

Finally, the first football game of the season. Mez and the rest of the Dragons are eager to get underway, and Ayumi and Prof. Hughes are both in the stands. The game goes normally for the first possession of the K State Wildcats, but as soon as the Dragons offense takes the field, a giant robot monster erupts from the middle of the field!